Improving the Art Classroom

  For the first two years of my teaching career, I heard other teachers talk about the website Artsonia .  I resisted but after I looked into it myself, I realized what a useful tool it was to have.  This online portfolio follows students their entire K-8 career, as long as they keep uploading artwork.  For my K-3 students, I upload their artwork myself because I do not have them bring their pads to my classroom as it would be more distracting than helpful at that age.  Once they become 4th graders, I teach them how to take pictures of their artwork, upload their art to the website, and have them write an artist statement about their artwork.  I can even use a sentence starter to help students who struggle with writing.  Not only does this website follow students throughout their elementary school career and archive their work, but parents can view their work and purchase items with their child's artwork. Some of the proceeds are then given to the art teacher for that school to use

  This video by The Art of Education gives great ideas for classroom management strategies and first-week-back activities.   One great classroom management strategy was to make a glitter timer.  This is great for any classroom, not just an art room for elementary and middle school.  The timer is around 2.5 minutes and can shaken up again to make it an even 5 minutes.  The teacher suggests using it for sketching, but this could be great for any quick-timed activity without students having to worry about the clock ticking down. A fun activity to get students to get back into the art room or any classroom is with challenges.  One challenge that was suggested was building marshmallow towers using toothpicks and marshmallows.  This is a good team-building exercise and it promotes healthy competition between peers.   By making small changes in the classroom, teachers can help their students to be more engaged and overall successful.  

I-Based Platforms: Benefits and Challenges for the Modern Art Room Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something that has been around the corner, and now that it is here, it is here to stay.  So how can we use AI in our classrooms? This article gives some great examples of how to do just that with programs like ChatGPT (creates detailed writing) and Dall-E (creates images). ChatGPT can be used for: Making drawing prompts for students Help brainstorm ideas for writing reposts or research papers Generate descriptions for art history prompts Dall-E can be used for Generating an image from a description Create multiple images from one prompt Using the image as a reference for drawing Although there are drawbacks to using AI software, such as copyright and plagiarism concerns, understanding when and how to utilize it can make it a great tool for the classroom, students, and teachers.

Art Integration This NEA article discusses the benefits of integrating the arts into generalized classrooms and different subjects.  Using a STEAM approach, schools can add more engagement into their curriculum by adding art activities.   " The key to arts integration is to teach music, drama, and visual arts along with subject-area concepts across the disciplines.  As part of an art lesson, students learn geometry by creating abstract art pieces, while also learning about abstract artists throughout history and how math relates to their work. They’ll learn about the painting process, color theory, mixing colors—even how to care for paintbrushes." -Cindy Long The students learn not only about the subject but also about creative processes.  The Kennedy's Center art education  has excellent resources for teachers in many subjects.  They also include performance arts as well as visual arts education resources.